Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Easy EASY cookies in Japan...

So since I moved to Japan, I have never been able to get my American cookie recipes to work. Something about the flour here. I cheat and do it with American cake mix. My cake recipes don't work with the flour in Japan either, so I keep the cake mixes on hand. I order them a case at a time from the Foreign Buyers Club in Kobe.

So tonight we whipped up a batch. Enjoyed some for ourselves and took some over to the neighbors, who have now started the Japanese thing of exchanging little gifts back and forth. I took her some pie, she brought me some cute little hand towels for the kids, I took her some cake, she brought me some of the most delicious cherry tomatoes I've ever eaten, and tonight I took her some cookies! This is how you start a ministry to your neighbors ;P This back and forth exchange will probably go on now forever. and one of the things I LOVE is that Hana LOVES it! She loves cookie and she loves giving away what she cooked! This is like the beginning of a little ministry for my girl!

My basic recipe for cake mix cookies is 1 bag of yellow cake mix, 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of oil. Then I add whatever my little heart desires at the moment. I chop up a dark chocolate bar (chocolate chips are too expensive here and too hard to find), throw in some nuts, or some dried fruit, etc.

Tonight I wanted to add oatmeal. I was craving oatmeal cookies. So here is how Hana and I made the cookies tonight (sorry no pictures, I figure you have seen a cookie before, lol)

1 box of Yellow cake mix (I used supermoist butter Betty Crocker)

2/3 cup oatmeal

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil (if your mix is NOT the supermoist buttery kind like mine was, you could use butter instead of oil, if your living on the edge!)

Dump all that into a bowl together and mix it up, until it takes on a cookie dough consistency. Then tonight we chopped some walnuts and also added about 1/3 cup of dried cranberries. You could add any kind of dried fruit, nuts or chocolate you want. I bet this would be yummy as white chocolate macadamia nut! Or just white chocolate (I love white chocolate).

So add in the extras, spoon it out onto a cookie sheet (or the little tray that comes with your convection oven in Japan). I cook my cookies on top of these handy little professional baking mats that I discovered a few years ago thanks to my brother the almost professional chef ;P

These cookies will not spread out, so I spoon them on the sheet and then press them down and shape them to the thickness I want before baking.

Bake at 190C for 10-12 minutes. Allow them to cook for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cook. Or before you eat about ten of them hot and gooey and then deliver the rest to the neighbors!!!